Al Davis Throws Tom Cable Under the Bus

Al Davis couldn't make his first media appearance in two years to simply announce the hiring of Hue Jackson as his new head coach.

Instead the owner of the Oakland Raiders took the opportunity to drag the name of his former head coach Tom Cable through the mud.

Davis laid out a laundry list of accusations against Cable, with his lawyers on hand, shortly after introducing Jackson as the team's sixth head coach in eight years.

The 81-year-old owner said the "turmoil" started when Cable was accused of breaking assistant coach Randy Hanson's jaw in a fight.

"When we had the ... Randy Hansen incident, we had a turmoil in our coaching staff," he said. "Randy's jaw was broken, to this day nobody is sure how it was broken. We had a spouse accuse the head coach of personal relations that were not good. And at that time there were a lot of people who wanted me to take action."

Davis said Cable was warned about potentially being fined or even losing his job if the alleged actions were true.

He said the team was facing lawsuits by both Hanson and Marie Lutz, a woman Cable dated before marrying his third wife.

Davis learned of the allegations against Cable through an ESPN "Outside the Lines" segment, which documented the alleged violent behavior by Cable towards two women over 20 years.

"He knew that I could have thrown him out for the initial stuff for what he did to the Raiders," Davis said.

But Davis said he brought Cable back last season because he thought the coach had told him everything about the alleged incidents and that it would not be a problem.

He claimed that only during the season did he find out that Cable had not be honest with him and he finally wanted to fire him with six weeks left in the season after he learned that Cable brought Lutz on the road with him.

"One of the things revealed by Ms. Lutz was too much for me," Davis said.

Davis began fining Cable $20,000 a paycheck with six weeks left in the season. He said he did not fire him because he thought the Raiders could still make the playoffs and he did not want cause "turmoil" on the team.

Cable filed a grievance against the Raiders to recover the $120,000. Davis said the lawsuit with Lutz, that named the Raiders, was settled out of court while the suit by Hanson against the team and Cable is up for arbitration in front of NFL Commissioner Roger Godell.
 

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